In the present publication, thirty technologies and approaches from the Nepal Conservation Approaches and Technologies (NEPCAT) database, documented using the WOCAT tool, are being published as printed fact sheets to facilitate sharing with a wider audience. The fact sheets are designed to support the efforts of rural development, especially in Nepal, and provide impetus and ideas for decision makers, development actors, and land users. They cover adaptations of methods and new options for land use and rehabilitation and growing and processing crops that increase productivity and support income generation. Users are encouraged to print out, copy, and distribute the sheets in any form that facilitates sharing. All new contributions to the database and fact sheets are welcomeRead More

In the present publication, thirty technologies and approaches from the Nepal Conservation Approaches and Technologies (NEPCAT) database, documented using the WOCAT tool, are being published as printed fact sheets to facilitate sharing with a wider audience. The fact sheets are designed to support the efforts of rural development, especially in Nepal, and provide impetus and ideas for decision makers, development actors, and land users. They cover adaptations of methods and new options for land use and rehabilitation and growing and processing crops that increase productivity and support income generation. Users are encouraged to print out, copy, and distribute the sheets in any form that facilitates sharing. All new contributions to the database and fact sheets are welcomeRead More

As a significant contribution to the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the fifth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-5) builds on previous reports, continuing to provide analyses of the state, trends and outlook for, and responses to, environmental change, including extreme events from storm, flood and drought, to the Fukushima disaster in 2011. It also adds new dimensions through its assessment of progress towards meeting internationally agreed goals, such as the development of programmes for mitigating the effects of extreme water-related events, and identifying gaps in their achievement (Chapters 2–6), on analysing promising response options that have emerged in the regions (Chapters 9–15), and presenting potential responses for the international community (Chapters 16–17). Furthermore, for the first time, GEO-5 suggests that there should be a fundamental shift in the way environmental issues are analysed, with consideration given to the drivers of global change, rather than merely to the pressures on the environmentRead More

This paper offers an overview of the Indian state’s alternative or sustainable development trajectories as well as the more mainstream policy decisions for high-growth objectives in the global economy. Rapid economic growth in India during the last two decades has accentuated the demand for energy and natural resources related to water, land and forests. Based on a review of the current policy framework in these areas and data from fieldwork in thenortheastern region of India, this paper addresses two inter-related themes: (i) how emerging economies like India have dealt with the question of access to resources in response to the opposing demands of “inclusive growth” and more equitable development aimed at closing “social divides”; and (ii) the specific case study of two seemingly contradictory development trajectories, namely the “Green Mission” and hydroelectric power (HEP) dams on the river Teesta in India’s northeastern Himalayan region. Our review of the policy agenda for water, land, forests and river dams suggests that current approaches toward growth have largely privileged a mainstream development perspective, promoted privatization and often aggravated existing social inequalities. The effectiveness of the so-called “green” or sustainable development approaches has largely been compromised due to their mainstream and increasingly neoliberal orientation conceptualized within a primarily techno-bureaucratic policy frameworkRead More

The report precisely reflects the Nepalese context of climate change and associated consequences. It presents national concerns on climate change and provide information to scholars, planners and professionals to design and implement climate change related actions in the fieldRead More

Ensuring a secure supply of food is essential, given the world’s (and especially Asia’s) growing population, high and volatile food prices, increasingly scarce resources, and changing environment. This paper discusses the drivers behind food insecurity in Asia and points to ways to mitigate it.The world’s population has now reached 7 billion, and is projected to increase by more than 2 billion between now and 2050. Asia will account for majority of the increase. And Asia’s growing affluence is shifting food demand away from cereal grains toward meat, vegetables, and fruits, which require more water, land, and other inputs than do cereals. .Asia, which is home to most of the world’s poor and undernourished populations, is finding increasing difficulty feeding its people as demand for food expands rapidly just as water and land resources decline. Because of these pressures, food prices have been rising since the 2000s. High and volatile food prices are eroding the purchasing power of households—especially of poor ones, which spend up to 70% of their budgets on food—and are thus undermining recent gains in poverty reduction. The impact of higher food prices is severe—an additional 112 million people could have escaped poverty in Asia during the late 2000s if food prices had not increased during the period. Thus, long- and shortterm strategies are needed to ensure food security and bolster efforts at poverty reduction. Policies to enhance food security that are discussed in this paper include safety net and social protection programs, and policies that promote agricultural productivity, rural development, agricultural research, and human capital investmentRead More

If you listen to climate scientists — and despite the relentless campaign to discredit their work, you should — it is long past time to do something about emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. If we continue with business as usual, they say, we are facing a rise in global temperatures that will be little short of apocalyptic. And to avoid that apocalypse, we have to wean our economy from the use of fossil fuels, coal above all..Read More